With gross government debt of 226% of GDP, Japan’s fiscal situation is in uncharted territory and puts the economy at risk. Japan needs a detailed and credible fiscal consolidation plan, including specific revenue increases and measures to control spending to restore its fiscal sustainability....

New Zealand currently charges some classes of capital gains to income tax, but there is no tax on capital gains as such. The Tax Working Group recently established by the government has however recommended that there should be such a tax. That is, it has recommended that New Zealand should, like...

The United States Internal Revenue Code contains many provisions for credits, deductions, and other tax advantages intended to achieve various economic goals considered desirable by the U.S. Congress. The depreciation allowance is one such deduction, frequently used to compensate taxpayers for...

In recent years the euro area has shown less resilience to the negative and largely OECD-wide common shocks than the English-speaking countries, but most of the smaller euro area countries have fared better than the large ones. This paper reviews policy issues that are important in fostering a...

Revenue estimates for tax policy changes are typically made under the convention of a fixed set of economic assumptions, with a given level of nominal GDP and aggregate income. For a tax policy change as large and significant as an add-on value-added tax (VAT) or other consumption tax that...

The escaped savings are critical for the cycle of money, as express the amount of money which leak from an economy and not return back to make more economic cycles. This paper is about the comparison of the cycle of money including the escaping savings and without the escaping saving. Then, it...

We analyze an environment plagued by double moral hazard where the worker's effort level and the employer's monitoring level are not contractible. In such an environment, the employer tends to over-monitor thereby inducing low effort. To ease the latter problem, the employer may choose to...

This paper surveys the recent literature on the theory of macroeconomic policy. We study the effect of various incentive constraints on the policy making process, such as lack of credibility, political opportunism, political ideology, and divided government. The survey is organized in three...

Among the distortions generated by inflation, those caused by its interaction with taxation are particularly important. Due to the non-indexation of the tax system, inflation exacerbates the inefficiencies generated by taxation. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the welfare effects of these...

This chapter surveys the recent literature on the theory of macroeconomic policy. We study the effect of various incentive constraints on the policy making process, such as lack of credibility, political opportunism, political ideology, and divided government. The survey is organized in three...